Most Likely to Die

by Lisa Jackson

  “Agreed.” Rachel realized that he felt as she did—that these reports revealed things no one else needed to know. Not unless one of these six women turned out to be a murderer.

  He glanced around, checking to make sure their conversation would be private. “I can make this quick,” he told her. “Lindsay’s as clean as a whistle, except for the illegitimate son she gave away nineteen years ago.”

  Rachel smiled. “She and Mandy were always the good girls.”

  “So were you, honey.”

  Rachel shrugged. “I just didn’t have the guts to do anything bad.”

  “No, that wasn’t it. You were just too smart to do anything really stupid.”

  “I had a crush on Jake. That was pretty stupid.”

  “That was youthful foolishness.”

  She cleared her throat. “DeLynn had a nervous breakdown right after college and attempted suicide. She spent two years in therapy. And April Wright had an abortion our senior year of high school, then in college she got hooked on drugs, but she turned her life around a few years later and has been clean and sober ever since.”

  “Kristen did some drinking and used marijuana in college. That’s it for her, except for one police report about a minor road rage incident five years ago.”

  “Martina went through a court-appointed anger management course,” Rachel said. “It seems she had a problem with a neighbor and wound up painting red polka dots on his chartreuse green house. That was eight years ago.”

  “There seems to have been an epidemic of teenage pregnancies,” Dean said. “Bella got an abortion, too, which is surprising, considering that her parents were staunch Catholics. I’d have thought she would have done as Lindsay did and have the baby, then give it up for adoption.”

  “Poor Bella.” Rachel shook her head. “April put out in high school because she thought it was the only way to get a boyfriend. I knew she was having sex with several different guys. But Bella having an abortion surprises me. I had no idea she had a boyfriend, that she ever dated for that matter. She was more than a year younger than the rest of us, just a kid really.”

  “Bella had some severe emotional problems after Jake’s murder.” Dean laid the three reports down on top of his desk. “It seems her parents put her into therapy for a couple of years.”

  Rachel heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t know what I expected these reports would prove. I guess I hoped something would show up that would point us in the right direction.”

  “All the reports proved is that nobody’s perfect.”

  “Two nervous breakdowns, one road rage, one illegitimate child, two abortions, one drug addiction, one suicide attempt, one anger management class. Nothing that shouts ‘I’m capable of cold-blooded murder.’”

  “So what now?” Dean asked. “Dig deeper? Move on to the guys who were closest to Jake or—?”

  “You’d be on that list.”

  “Yeah, I would.”

  “You didn’t kill Jake.”

  “No, I didn’t kill him, but…” Their gazes linked, the connection sexually charged. “If he had ever hurt you, I would have.”

  Chapter 30

  As she pulled a small, rusty metal cart behind her, the bag lady with the stringy gray hair hanging down in her eyes came up alongside Rachel. Several people walked between them as they hurried along the sidewalk, and eventually Rachel moved ahead of the pitiful old woman. But it seemed she could not escape. Either the woman was following Rachel or by some odd coincidence they were heading in the same direction. After several blocks, Rachel’s instincts warned her that the bag lady was indeed tailing her. The poor thing probably wanted to ask for a handout. Just as Rachel reached the red light where she would cross the street, she paused on the curb and turned to face her stalker.

  The woman had disappeared.

  Odd.

  As she crossed the street, Rachel kept glancing over her shoulder. Sensing that someone was watching her, she felt a nervous foreboding.

  When she stepped up on the curb onto Second Avenue, she looked back once again. No bag lady. Instead a bucktoothed redhead in thick glasses, wearing a Stetson and boots, appeared as if out of nowhere, her step quick and agile. The unattractive cowgirl wannabe hurried past Rachel, not even bothering to apologize when she brushed into her in passing.

  Shivering with an unnatural fear, Rachel stopped dead still and looked in every direction. Strangers surrounded her.Unknown faces stared at her. Weird-looking women in costumes that hid their true identity gawked at her.

  Suddenly a tall, handsome young man came toward her, his dark hair and blue eyes heartbreakingly familiar. Jake Marcott smiled at her. Rachel sucked in a deep, terrified breath. A deadly arrow stuck out of Jake’s bloody chest.

  The walking dead.

  No, this isn’t real. I’m hallucinating.

  Rachel woke suddenly, startled for several seconds, uncertain about her surroundings. She lay there, darkness encompassing her, her heartbeat thumping maddeningly inside her head. The residue from her nightmare mingled with reality when she realized she was in the guest bedroom in Charlie and Laraine Young’s home in Portland.

  It had been a dream. Just a dream.

  No, it had been a nightmare. The gray-haired bag lady stalking her. The ugly, rude, redheaded cowgirl. Jake Marcott’s smiling corpse. None of them had been real.

  She shoved back the covers, slid to the edge of the bed, and sat there for a couple of minutes, allowing herself time to awaken completely. Her mind whirled with thoughts, some coherent, others jumbled and confused. Standing solidly on the wooden floor, she stretched her arms over her head, then down to touch her toes. Awake and slightly shaken by the nightmare, she went into the bathroom, flipped on the overhead light, and turned on the faucet. After dashing cold water in her face, she stared at her pale reflection in the vanity mirror.

  Her eyes widened. Her mouth gaped. Realization dawned as the water trickled over her cheeks and seeped down her throat. Oh my God! Dreaming about Jake—about his bloody corpse—wasn’t surprising, all things considered. But why a bag lady and an ugly cowgirl?

  Because during the past few weeks, she had actually encountered both a dirty old bag lady and an unattractive redhead wearing a Stetson and boots. And there had been a plump blond nanny strolling along with a baby buggy, too. All three of them rather weird.

  Disguises!

  Each of them had been wearing a disguise. The bag lady, the ugly redhead, and the plump blonde.

  Had they all been the same person?

  Of course!

  Someone was stalking Rachel, keeping tabs on her, playing some sort of sick game.

  Rachel dried her face with a hand towel and returned to the bedroom to get her cell phone. She glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. Five-thirty. Would he be awake at this hour? Probably not.

  She flipped open her phone and typed in a text message, then sent it to Dean.

  When you wake up, contact me. We need to talk.

  Within minutes she received a reply.

  I’m awake. Call me. Or come over to my place.

  Immediately she called him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked the minute he answered.

  “Someone has been stalking me for the past few weeks.”

  “Why are you just now telling me?”

  “Because I just now realized it,” she said. “I can’t believe it took me this long to realize what was going on. Even though she was wearing disguises and changing them to throw me off, I should have sensed something.”

  “Slow down, honey. You lost me at the word disguises.”

  “My stalker was changing her looks, wearing different disguises when she followed me.”

  “Are you sure about this?”

  Rachel blew out an aggravated breath. “I’m not sure of anything. It’s five-thirty in the morning. I had a horrible nightmare in which Jake’s smiling corpse appeared to me. I have to go to Mandy’s funeral this afternoon and…” She clicked her ton
gue. “I’m just a little scared.”

  “Want me to come over there?”

  “No, you’d just wake up Charlie and Laraine.”

  “How about I pick you up and we go somewhere for an early breakfast?”

  “Give me thirty minutes to grab a shower,” she told him. “I’ll leave Laraine a note telling her where I’ve gone. I’ll meet you out front.”

  “Wait inside, just to be safe, until you see me drive up.”

  “You don’t think she’s outside this time of the morning, just waiting for a chance to attack me, do you?”

  “I don’t think she wants to kill you,” Dean said. “At least not yet. She’s playing with you, tormenting you. And she’s bold about it, too. She took a chance every time she put on a disguise and followed you. What if you’d recognized her?”

  “I wish I had. I wish I’d realized what was happening, but my mind has been so cluttered with facts about Jake’s old murder case and about Mandy’s recent murder that I couldn’t see what was right under my nose.”

  “So now you know. You’re aware of what’s been happening. You’ll be on the lookout for her.”

  Rachel’s heartbeat accelerated, the thought of actually coming face-to-face with the mystery woman unsettling.

  “Rach?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little rattled. Sometimes nightmares have a way of seeming a little too real.”

  “What are you wearing right now?”

  “What?”

  “Do you have on a gown or PJs or do you sleep in the raw?”

  Startled by his question, it took her a full minute to realize what he was doing and why. “Not very subtle, McMichaels. It’s obvious you’re trying to get my mind off the stalker.”

  “Yeah, that and I’m curious as to whether you’re naked right now.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m wearing a ratty old Alabama T-shirt.”

  “I like a woman who goes for comfort in her sleepwear.”

  “Do you now?”

  “In case you’re interested, I sleep in my briefs.”

  “Why would I be interested?”

  “For the same reason I’m curious about you.”

  “Look, let’s end this silly game right now.” She wasn’t good at flirtatious game playing. She was an up-front, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of woman. If he came right out and asked her to have sex with him, she probably would. “Pick me up in thirty minutes.”

  “I’ll be there, honey. With bells on.”

  Dean studied her as she sat there, her small, delicate hands wrapped around a white coffee mug, her gaze focused on the black liquid inside. Just looking at her turned him inside out. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Why didn’t he just tell her that he wanted her? The worst that could happen was that she’d say no. And it wasn’t as if he’d never been rejected before. But she wasn’t just any woman. This was Rachel.

  Besides that, she wasn’t going to stay in Portland. She was here for only two reasons—the reunion and reopening the Cupid Killer case. For twenty years, he hadn’t been a blip on her radar, and truth be told, he hadn’t consciously thought about her all that often, so why couldn’t he just accept that they were friends and nothing more? Once that had been enough, or at least he’d convinced himself that it was. But he wasn’t a horny teenage boy having sex with other girls while he thought about one girl in particular.

  The good girl I would have died to protect. Would have killed to protect.

  They had eaten the daily special—bacon, eggs, and toast—and discussed Rachel’s nightmare and its implications. The bottom line was that neither of them wanted to believe that someone from the old gang had killed Jake and had now resurfaced and was killing again.

  “When we get to headquarters, I’ll try to find out if one of the girls flew to New York around the same time Aurora did,” Dean said.

  “And if one of them did?”

  Dean grimaced. “Then we find out why she was there.”

  Rachel sipped on the coffee. “And if none of them were in New York when Aurora was killed and Lindsay was attacked, then what?”

  “Then we look elsewhere. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “This woman you’ve seen wearing various disguises could be not only wearing costumes to hide her true identity, she could use a fake ID,” Dean said. “It’s not that difficult to get hold of a fake driver’s license, and that’s all she’d need to board a plane from Portland to New York City.”

  “Damn! If she did that, then what’s the point of checking?”

  “I’m just saying maybe she used a fake ID. I’ll still check the flights for the time around Aurora’s trip.”

  Four hours and five cups of coffee later, Dean stopped by Rachel’s desk at downtown headquarters. “Good news and bad news,” he said.

  “Let’s hear the good first.”

  “I spoke to Patrick Dewey’s son. He’s promised to talk to his mother again and see if he can’t persuade her to see us. It seems she’s selling her house and is in the middle of packing up and clearing out. He’s not sure how she’ll react when he talks to her again.”

  “That’s the good news?”

  Dean grinned. She loved his cocky grin. It made her want to kiss him.

  “It could be good news, if Mrs. Dewey will talk to us. We’ve run into a dead end on the Cupid Killer case, just as your dad did twenty years ago. Without a new lead of some kind…” Dean threw up his open palms in a that’s-it gesture.

  “We’re grabbing for straws thinking Mrs. Dewey might be able to shed some new light on the old case, aren’t we?”

  “Probably.”

  Rachel frowned. “So, what’s the bad news?”

  “Both April Wright and DeLynn Vaughn could have been in New York City when Aurora was killed and Lindsay was attacked.”

  “What do you mean they could have been?”

  “April was visiting her sister in Bridgeport, Connecticut, an easy drive to New York City. And DeLynn was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on a business trip. It would have been a longer drive, but doable.”

  “Crap!”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  “I just don’t see either April or DeLynn as a killer.”

  “We could be barking up the wrong tree, you know. Checking to see if any of the reunion committee members were in New York when Aurora was killed was just a thought. It doesn’t prove anything that April and DeLynn both just happened to be within driving distance at the time.”

  “I almost wish you hadn’t checked. At least not until after the funeral. I’ll have to find a way not to stare at them during the service and wonder if either of them is actually capable of murder.”

  She cried as many tears as the rest of them did at Mandy Kim Stulz’s funeral service. Poor Jeff. He was little more than a zombie, obviously zoned out on medication. His parents flanked him, his father’s arm around Jeff’s shoulder, his mother holding his hand and weeping softly. And Mandy’s parents—such a sad little couple, clinging to each other, trying to be brave for the sake of Mandy’s siblings. An older sister and brother were both keeping an eye on their elderly parents.

  She would have preferred to skip the morbid service, but if she had, people would have wondered why. No one suspected her, and she intended to keep it that way. She had gotten away with murder twenty years ago, hadn’t she? And although Rachel and Dean suspected Aurora’s death hadn’t been accidental and the homeless man hadn’t really killed Haylie, they had no proof that she had killed them.

  How absolutely wonderful that Lindsay Farrell was here, on Wyatt Goddard’s arm, no less. To think that all these years she had believed the child Lindsay had given birth to had been Jake’s. An understandable mistake. After all, none of them had known that Lindsay had been cheating on Jake with Wyatt.

  Do you hear that, Jake? All the while you thought Lindsay was yours and yours alone, Wyatt was screwin
g her.

  She had to control the urge to laugh out loud.

  And you never knew that I found someone else, too. Someone kind and understanding. Someone who loved me. Someone who didn’t judge me harshly and didn’t blame me for loving you and hating you at the same time.

  If only things could have been different. If she could have kept her baby.

  It might not have been your child, Jake. It might have been his.

  She let her gaze travel over the mourners. Discreetly, of course. With a damp Kleenex pressed against her cheek, she faked her grief, putting on quite a performance. Nothing over the top. Just a few tears escaping now and then, enough to convince everyone that she was deeply saddened by Mandy’s death. She watched the others, especially Lindsay, Kristen, and Rachel, and mimicked their actions. Except she didn’t take part in the comforting, caring hugs they shared. Just as it had been in the past, she was close to them, an arm’s length from their inner circle. And yet she might as well have been a million miles away for all the good it did her. They wouldn’t let her in now any more than they would have back then when she had so longed to fit in.

  But soon—very soon—there would be no inner circle, no little clique of popular girls.

  They’ll all be dead—every last one of them.

  And when the bulldozers destroyed St. Elizabeth’s, swept away the rubble and buried the remains, she and she alone would be left standing, her thirst for revenge sated, her enemies punished, all the wrongs made right at last.

  In the past twenty years, Rachel had made friends in both Chattanooga and in Huntsville, but none of her more recent relationships had been as strong as the bond she had forged in high school with Kristen and Lindsay. Being with them again was like turning back the clock and reverting into teenagers who shared everything with one another. Well, almost everything. Lindsay had kept her pregnancy a secret. God only knew how. Maybe it was because she and Kristen had both known that Lindsay wasn’t having sex with Jake and just assumed she was still a virgin.

  Rachel made herself a promise—she was not going to lose track of Kristen and Lindsay, not ever again. She was going to stay in touch often.